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Recommended Component 2025 – Stereophile
Editor's Choice Award 2024 – hi-fi+ Magazine
Product of The Year Award 2024 - StereoNET
Editor's Choice Award - Hi-Fi Pig
Best Buy and Highly Recommended Awards - Mono & Stereo
A New Standard for Musical Performance and Value
Hana's Master cartridge designer Maseo Okada-san offers you an exceptional listening experience, synergizing special ingredients and techniques to create musical richness with his HANA-Umami Blue hand-built MC cartridge from Japan.
When you experience a special sense of taste in food, it's Umami. The specific ingredients meld together synergistically and harmoniously to become more than the sum of their parts. Many of the world's most delicious and memorable food experiences possess the Umami quality.
The HANA-Umami Blue cartridge follows in the Hana "Brilliant and Gorgeous" tradition of providing the listener with sublime enjoyment. The HANA-Umami Red won accolades and critical acclaim worldwide for the highest achievement of sound quality. The HANA ML moving coil cartridge is recognized for a level of musical enjoyment and satisfaction unique in its price range. Embodying the true sense of synergy, the HANA-Umami Blue combines their essential ingredients to establish a new standard for musical performance and value.
"Recommended Component" Honors
Stereophile honored the Umami Blue by awarding it the magazine's coveted Recommend Component status for 2025.
"The Blue uses a MicroLine stylus on a boron cantilever, and generates 0.4mV from 8 ohm coils and an alnico magnet. Its CNC-machined duralumin body weighs 10.8gm and recommended tracking force is 2gm. Playing a mono album by violinist Ruggiero Ricci, HR [Herb Reichert] wrote that the Blue dug out more of that rich, old-mono sound than he was expecting from a contemporary stereo cartridge. It 'put just the right bite on Ruggiero's bowing, making its scraped tones into a goosebumpy spectacle,' and the dazzling harmonics of Ruggiero's violin had his full attention."
"A Three-Dimensional Sonic Experience"
hi-fi+ magazine honored the Debut Pro with an Editor's Choice Award for 2024.
"The Blue shines in capturing the music's ambience, subtle details, even in the bass, and spatial dimensions.
"In our evaluation, Alan Sircom loved the three-dimensional sonic experience achieved with the Hana Umami Blue, underscoring its ability to evoke a high-end cartridge performance at an accessible price point. Sircom felt the cartridge's exceptional aesthetics and sonics cements its status as an audio gem that will resonate with a discerning audience."
Award-Winning Performance
The HANA-Umami Blue won a StereoNET Product of The Year Award 2024 in the Phono Cartridge category.
"Hana is the most famous cartridge brand you’ve never heard of – as its parent company, Excel Sound, has been going for nearly fifty-five years, making OEM pick-ups for a welter of Japanese manufacturers. It’s only in the past few years that the Hana name has surfaced on the analogue scene, as its range of classy moving coils has wowed vinylistas. The Umami Blue is a beautifully built, high end, low output design using technology trickled down from the flagship Umami Red. It sounds sublimely sweet and extremely musically engaging – celebrating the beauty of vinyl."
"The One to Beat Anywhere Near Its Price Tag"
"The Hana Umami Blue won’t disappoint," observes Dean Cacioppo, trackingangle.com, June 15, 2023. "Is it the perfect cartridge? Absolutely not. There are differences between a $2,500 cartridges and ones that costs north of 10k. The Hana Blue just lessened that gap. I am quite confident that in 10 years theHana Umami Blue will be regarded as one of those products that was 'the one to beat,' at or anywhere near its price tag."
The HANA-Umami Way
The HANA-Umami Blue high-end moving coil cartridge combines the vision of Master cartridge designer Okada-san with the history of special materials, classic Japanese techniques, and modern audio engineering. The Auricle™ body design, unique and exclusive to the Umami series, is CNC machined from Duralumin. Sharing key Umami Red ingredients, including the precision-cut diamond stylus, Boron cantilever, and high-purity copper wires, then combining these with the Alnico magnet based generator found in the famous Hana ML, creates the exceptionally musical Umami Blue.
This synergistic relationship in MC cartridge design between specific materials, unique body design, a sophisticated generator, and hand-built precision is the critical aspect for outstanding cartridge performance. This creates a memorable and emotional experience, reminiscent of meal at a Michelin 3-star restaurant, with every element and detail working in concert.
All the major parts in a HANA-Umami Blue are manufactured in-house by Excel Sound with its rich history spanning well over 50 years. Excel's highly trained craftsmen skillfully hand assemble the HANA-Umami Blue, and all Hana cartridges, ensuring an intensely musical experience furthering the HANA "Brilliant and Gorgeous" sound.
Auricle™ Cartridge Body
The HANA-Umami Blue incorporates the exclusive Auricle™ body design, first developed for the Umami Red. It mimics the shape of the human outer ear to rigidly support the "Open Air" Moving Coil generator.
The unique body shape is machined from A7075 aluminum, one of the strongest and lightest alloys, often specified in aerospace engineering. The Umami Blue body features a white POM inlay on its front facia to provide damping properties and as homage to the Hana ML, the first cartridge using a POM body. Tapped and threaded mounting holes in the Auricle™ body assure secure attachment to the tonearm.
Special Body Finish
The HANA-Umami Blue uses a special Melamine Thermosetting Process (MTP) to impart the brilliant blue glossy finish to the Auricle™ body. Originally developed by Dupont, the melamine resin bonds to the aluminum body via vapor deposition by baking at 120 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes for increased hardness and resonance control. The Melamine Thermosetting Process contributes to the rich sound with increased clarity, better imaging, and bass definition. The luster of the Umami Blue glossy finish is brilliant and gorgeous, assuring long life with special optics.
Microline Stylus
The HANA-Umami Blue 'nude' natural diamond stylus is cut and polished to mimic the cutting head stylus used to Master or "cut" all vinyl records. This critical part, also used on the HANA-Umami Red, offers the most precise fit into the vinyl groove, tracing the most delicate musical nuances.
Boron Cantilever
Boron, with a hardness comparable to diamond, was selected for the HANA-Umami Blue to rigidly hold the Microline stylus. This solid Boron cantilever, a critical ingredient of the HANA-Umami Red, allows the smallest audible details and micro-dynamics to be transmitted without loss to the moving coil generator, capturing the artists' intent.
Alnico Magnet-Based Moving Coil Generator
The Alnico magnet material selected for the HANA-Umami Blue, as found in the Hana ML generator, creates a classic sonic quality. Alnico magnets provide greater linearity with reduced saturation, creating a rich musical quality. The pure copper wires are expertly hand-wound onto the Permalloy cross armature, found in the Hana ML generator. The pure iron pole piece featured in the Umami Blue is another key ingredient found in both the HANA-Umami Red and Hana ML generator.
Cryogenic processing
A 'cold annealing' process at near absolute zero temperature is used to treat the pole piece, both front and rear yoke in the HANA-Umami Blue generator as well as the gold-plated signal output pins. The cryogenic process alters the molecular structure of the materials.
Exceptionally Musical
The Hana team is proud of their seamless integration of brilliant materials, modern audio engineering, and traditional Japanese techniques. Master designer Okada-san brings decades of experience to this design, furthering the exceptional musicality of this cartridge.
Editor's Choice Award
Hi-Fi Pig slapped the Umami-Blue with its Editor's Choice Award in a February 12, 2024 review.
"It is very difficult to fault the HANA BLUE UMAMI when compared to its more expensive sibling, but that sibling is my reference point and so compare I must when it comes to dishing out the award it gets. The RED got our EDITOR’S CHOICE award and not to give the cheaper BLUE the same award would make no sense whatsoever given how little they differ in performance!"
"Both the RED and the BLUE cartridges from HANA offer you a fantastically detailed and solid performance and both dig deep into the grooves of your records to deliver a very satisfying listening experience."
Two Awards in One Go
"The Umami Blue reaches the level of more expensive cartridges, making it a win-win for any analog connoisseur seeking more within a limited budget," reports Matej Isak, Mono & Stereo, June 1, 2024.
"Hana Umami Blue goes the full distance and then some, without breaking a sweat and without breaking a bank. I’m wholeheartedly granting the Hana Umami Blue cartridge the unique double award, the 2024 Best Buy Award, and the Mono & Stereo Highly Recommended Product Award in one go."
